Sundered Kindreds
by Lysana
Summary: Long ago, the Orcs were forcibly parted from their kinsmen the Elves. Now, after LOTR, an unexpected love blossoms between Glorfindel and an Orc maiden he names Fëathalië. NOT a humor fic! I mean it! Story also involves the Ents finding the Entwives.
1. Chapter 1: Dreams

She had not hunted well that night.

Kills-without-rest's eyes were glazed with hunger, and her stomach felt shrunken, though when she looked down at herself she appeared as round-bellied as ever.

_Curse the Bright Ones!_ she thought, not knowing any other name or identity for the Valar her elven ancestors had loved. She twisted her yellow teeth in a snarl. The day's cursed, burning Yellow Eye was about to rise, and there was no time for more hunting.

Shielding herself carefully from the half-lidded Sneaking Eye that she had once heard a filthy man-thing call 'the Moon,' Kills-without-rest crept into the cave she shared with the several other Orcs she had not been able to kill or drive away.

She selected a dirty corner where she could sleep well-guarded with her back pressed against the bumpy stone. Soon she fell asleep in spite of her hunger, and she did not know that it was Irmo the Vala who brought her the deer that she devoured, raw and bloody, in her dreams.

* * *

Glorfindel dreamed of the Sea that night.

He knew that he walked in a dream, for his spirit was very well aware that his body remained in Imladris, in the house that had been Elrond's. Indeed, Glorfindel still thought of it as belonging to that lord.

Elrond himself had departed for the Sea just twenty years ago, a bare handful of leaves on the tree of years. He had taken ship from the Grey Havens, and that was the same place where Glorfindel wandered in dreams now.

The voice of the Sea sang all around, the music of Ulmo and his liegeman Ossë of the shores. It was beautiful, but it had never called to Glorfindel the way he knew it did to many of his kinsmen.

_I wonder why,_ Glorfindel mused, walking along the sandy shore. He picked up a shell, one of the mighty pink-and-pearl conchs that were made after the same fashion as Ulmo's own horns the Ulumúri, and listened to it. The same music echoed faintly within, but it called to him no more than did the Sea's own.

_Perhaps it is because this world calls to me louder,_ Glorfindel thought. He turned away from the Sea, first respectfully replacing the conch where he had found it even though he still knew this was only a dream. For whatever reason, Glorfindel felt a deep love and connection for the lands of Middle-earth. Wonderful as he knew the Land Beyond the Sea to be, he did not care if it was many more ages before he set foot on its blessed shores.

Maybe it was some destiny yet unfulfilled that bound Glorfindel and his heart to these lands. He smiled, walking away from the Sea to wander instead under the red leaves of the autumn forest ahead of him.


	2. Chapter 2: Battle

"That's _my_ sleeping spot!" a voice snarled.

Kills-without-rest opened her confused eyes, licking her lips for scraps of deer meat that wasn't there.

It was She-who-laughs, pressing the point of a dagger into Kills-without-rest's ribs and challenging her for her corner. She was definitely not laughing now; her eyes gleamed with fury, and her mouth gaped open in a grimace of rage.

Kills-without-rest did not take the time to draw her own sword. She grabbed She-who-laughs' wrist in one strong hand, forcing the dagger slightly away from herself.

"Get to bed earlier, then!" she hissed mockingly. "What were you doing, daring the Yellow Eye?"

She-who-laughs roared wordlessly in outrage, and Kills-without-rest seized her chance. She raked the claws of her free hand hard across the other Orc's face, leaving red scratches. She twisted the dagger far to the side and erupted from her spot, wrenching She-who-laughs' arm hard enough to make her drop the dagger before letting go and springing back to draw her sword.

She-who-laughs was also fast. Both Orcs were holding swords in their hands before more than a pair of heartbeats had passed.

Kills-without-rest blocked her opponent's first savage strike and returned it, then stumbled forward and almost lost her balance when She-who-laughs spun quickly backwards and out of the way. She cursed herself, knowing that she had no right to be so clumsy even if she _had_ just been woken from a dream of delicious deer meat.

The thought of all that deer she hadn't gotten the chance to finish made her suddenly angrier, and the anger gave her strength. She ran forward, not giving She-who-laughs time to do anything but back up until she hit the cave wall several paces away. Kills-without-rest stabbed her sword directly through her enemy's heart.

As She-who-laughs fell dead to the floor, Kills-without-rest took her sword back, wiped it clean, and returned it to its scabbard. She considered for a moment taking her enemy's sword as well, but she knew her own was better. Besides, two swords would only weigh her down.

She did take the dagger, though, backtracking across the cave to pick it up from where it had fallen.

Laughing in triumph, as her fallen enemy would never again do, Kills-without-rest decided that tonight she had literally lived up to her name.

She had laughed too loudly. One of the other Orcs shifted in his sleep. Kills-without-rest jerked her head sharply around to look at him, lest he should wake up now that his attention was drawn and attack her too.

Seeing who it was, she relaxed.

Tough-hide grunted, turning his head slightly from where he slept as always in stupid trustfulness, facing the wall. "Killing someone again, girlie?" he growled. "Why don't you stop it so the rest of us can get some sleep?"

"Stop it yourself," Kills-without-rest retorted. "Maybe I'll kill _you_ one of these days."

His answer was a snore. She smiled. If she had known what it meant to have a brother, she would have known what to call the way she felt about Tough-hide. He had looked out for her when she was a young scrap, her first years on her own, and had even saved her life once or twice when he didn't have to.

Now that she was old enough to care for herself as well as any Orc, Tough-hide brought much of what little mirth there was into her life with his deliberately obstinate foolishness, and he had never turned on her. Once last year, when he killed some animal larger than he could eat alone, he had even shared it with her.

Kills-without-rest curled herself back into her hard-won sleeping spot, feeling victorious and almost contented. She didn't expect another dream-feast, but she knew those didn't really fill the belly anyway.

_It doesn't matter,_ she thought sleepily. _Tomorrow I'll find a real deer -- or maybe about fifty rabbits._


	3. Chapter 3: Hunting

Chapter 3: Hunting

Author's Note: Two of my reviewers have said that the names of my Orc characters resemble Native American names. As pleased as I am by the comparison, that wasn't what I had in mind when I named my Orcs. I've realized that I haven't yet gotten to the part of my story that makes this clear, but their names (and their conversations with each other) are supposed to be in the Black Speech of Mordor, translated into English for the story.

I've planned for years to give the Orc maiden a name in Black Speech that meant "Kills-all-night" or "Kills-without-rest" - but unlike the Elvish languages, Professor Tolkien created almost no Black Speech in any of his books that I know of. I didn't want to make it up myself out of thin air, so at the very last minute I decided to use the English form of her name, and any other Orc names, in my fanfic.

The style of the names themselves, descriptive phrases intended as English translations from one of Tolkien's languages, is directly inspired by many canon LOTR names. From the Grey Pilgrim to the Ringwraiths to Treebeard to Strider the Elfstone, Man of the West, the Lord of the Rings is full of such names. There are even more of them in the Silmarillion, which is mostly about Elves.

The Orcs themselves, it seems to me, clearly used these kinds of names in LOTR. "Snaga," the name generally used by the larger Orcs for any one of the smaller, lesser ones, was translated as "slave." The people of Isengard called Saruman "Sharkey," which a footnote said was probably based on the Orc-word "sharku" meaning "old man."

A big thank you to everyone who's put "Sundered Kindreds" in their story alerts or left me nice reviews! :)

* * *

Glorfindel crept silently through the dark woods, many miles west of Rivendell. Even for his swift white horse Asfaloth, it had taken most of the morning to get here. Asfaloth had remained, grazing contentedly, just outside the edge of the forest, and Glorfindel had spent the rest of the day patiently hunting for any sort of wild game to supplement the tables of Rivendell for the next evening's feast.

It was for the sheer joy of the hunt, as much as for the good use to which his people could put the wild meat (for though there was always an abundance of all sorts of good food in Imladris, game caught at a distance was a delicacy enjoyed by all), that Glorfindel had ridden out alone that morning. Now it was night, and the shadows were deep and dark under the trees, but Glorfindel had no trouble seeing his way. The faint rays of moonlight that filtered down between the leaves were more than enough light for his elven eyes to see by.

As Glorfindel slowly followed the subtle deer-trail he had spotted an hour or so earlier, it was his other senses that told him something was amiss in the woods. He froze, as still and silent as the trees, as he heard a sudden sound that was out of place.

It was a rustle, no louder than the breeze that whispered through the leaves, but it was out of tune with the rest of the sleeping forest's music. There was almost a scraping quality to the sound, and it was coming from ground-level rather than the branches of the trees, somewhere off to Glorfindel's right.

Glorfindel took a deep silent breath, scenting the air. His brow creased in concern, but not fear, as he identified an odor he had not smelled for several years.

_Orcs!_ More likely one Orc, he realized, since the scent was faint but seemed to be coming from nearby.

A light patter of hoofbeats alerted Glorfindel that his quarry was also near. _Something startled him,_ he thought, listening to the deer's swift movement. _The Orc?_

The hoofbeats slowed, then stopped a short distance ahead. Fitting an arrow to his slender bow, ready to take aim in a heartbeat at either his quarry or a potentially attacking enemy, Glorfindel moved noiselessly forward. All his senses were focused on pinpointing the locations of both the deer and the Orc.

He spotted the deer first. The animal stood like a shadow between the trees, his magnificent horns spreading like low branches. He was almost hidden by the darkness, but his brown eyes reflected the dim moonlight clearly enough for Glorfindel to pick him out by their gleam.

_Where is the Orc?_ the Elf-lord wondered briefly. But he knew well that a hunted animal could not be counted on to stop long in one spot. He took aim at the deer's heart and let fly his arrow.

* * *

Kills-without-rest awoke hungrier than she had been when she fell asleep the dawn before. The darkness spreading in from the cave's mouth told her that it was full night.

_Time to hunt!_ she thought in fierce satisfaction. Ignoring the grumblings and stirrings of the other Orcs - none of them would have any reason to stop her from leaving - she stood up and walked quietly out of the cave.

The Sneaking Eye had not yet risen. Kills-without-rest looked first to one side, then the other. Both the nearby forest and the open, rocky plain afforded good opportunities for hunting: squirrels, deer, or small birds in the forest, mostly rabbits on the plain.

It was the previous day's dream that decided her. She wanted to eat a deer! _And the woods are a good place to hide from that stinking silver Eye,_ she thought. _I'll leave the rabbits for nights when the Eye is sleepier._

As quietly as her parents and Tough-hide had taught her, Kills-without-rest slipped into the forest. Soon she caught the keen scent of a deer and followed it, gradually closing in on the unsuspecting animal.

The darkness thinned under the trees, telling Kills-without-rest that the Sneaking Eye had come out. Even under the protection of the trees' thick layers of branches, the dim light from that Eye frightened her a little. But she shivered in deeper fear as she remembered the hushed, terrified tales that her parents had told, of a Lidless Eye of fire that had ruled all of her people with fear and cruelty until it was extinguished a few years after her birth.

Shaking her head, Kills-without-rest focused her attention on the chase instead.

_Something's not right!_ she thought suddenly a while later. The air in the forest had changed. Now it felt dangerous. Kills-without-rest sniffed quietly, and her nostrils picked up the dirty smell of an Elf, like flowers and sunshine.

With a silent snarl, she edged forward, getting out her dagger. The deer was nearby; suddenly she heard it running through the trees. _Curses! If it runs too far I won't find it!_ But it stopped soon, and she hurried after it.

She couldn't hear the Elf, but she could still smell it. A little nervously, for she knew that many Orcs had been silently killed by the stinging arrows of Elves, she kept a lookout to both sides as she moved closer to the still-hidden deer.

_There it is!_ It was a large, magnificent deer, at least enough for a huge meal even if she ate only the best parts, standing motionless as if it thought the darkness could hide it from her eyes.

Kills-without-rest warily edged towards the deer, not letting it see her. The smell of Elf was all around, but she was too hungry to give up on her dinner. _If that creature attacks me, it will just have to face my sword!_ she thought savagely.

Almost twice her own height from the deer, she stopped. Readying her dagger, she took careful note of how the animal was standing. Then she launched herself at it, first running and then leaping through the air.

Before the startled deer could bolt, Kills-without-rest landed on its back and sank her dagger into its neck. At the same instant, she caught a glimpse of a narrow white face, framed by a few strands of gold that had strayed from beneath a concealing gray hood. An arrow whizzed through the air from the direction of that face, only a few paces away, and slammed into the side of the deer's body just as Kills-without-rest's dagger found its mark.


	4. Chapter 4: Meeting

Chapter 4: Meeting

Author's Note: Sorry about the long wait for an update! I've been really busy, both in real life and as a fanfic writer. Several stories have been clamoring for my time and inspiration, and this one has been drawing the short straw for a while. *turns to glare at her other notebooks* "BAD Silmarillion fics! Bad! Wait your turn! Aww, that's okay, I love you all too."

*calms down* Okay, on to more serious matters. I wonder if the same pattern will hold true that I've been seeing so far, and I'll get one racist anti-Orc review per chapter for the entire duration of this fanfic?

Come on, people. This is the year 2009. No race, culture, or society in OUR world is inherently evil. Why not give the same benefit of the doubt to the Orcs? They were corrupted by Morgoth and then enslaved by Sauron. They didn't ask to be evil, and it happens to be my interpretation that after Sauron's power was broken, they would be free to choose.

That said, enjoy! And again, sorry for the long wait!

* * *

"No!" A wild shout rang out through the trees. "Filthy Elf! That's _my_ deer!"

Glorfindel stood transfixed. He had never stood this close to an Orc since before the Dark Lord was defeated. This one, crouching on the back of the deer he had just shot, with her own dagger hilt-deep in the slain animal's neck, seemed somehow different from the hundreds of savage enemies he had faced in the past. Her face snarling in defiant rage, sharp yellow teeth showing between her twisting lips, she stared at him out of huge, round, gray eyes that seemed to snap and burn with hatred.

Hatred, but no evil. Glorfindel lowered his bow slightly. He could not ask himself to kill even an Orc for voicing such a basic thought of protest: _don't steal my food!_ Instead he took a placating step back. The Orc had spoken in the common Westron tongue; Glorfindel responded in the same way.

"It would seem that this is both your kill and mine," he said, feeling more than a little surprised at himself. Never had he expected to be having a civil conversation with an Orc-woman in the middle of his hunting trip!

She snarled warningly, letting go of the dagger in the deer's neck and standing up on the ground behind the animal. Glorfindel smoothly shouldered his bow and put a hand on the hilt of his own sword, to show that he was not defenseless.

Quickly matching his motion, the Orc grasped the hilt of a long, straight but jagged-edged sword that hung unsheathed by her side.

_This is not useful,_ Glorfindel thought in frustration. Taking a mad chance, he let go of his sword and spread both hands out to the sides.

"We can try to kill each other now," he said with just a hint of steel in his voice, "as our peoples have been doing for Ages. But I am unwilling to kill over a game animal. I can hunt another, if you want this one." He smiled, nobility and the excellent upbringing that his parents had given him bringing his good manners to the surface even through his astonishment. "Besides, I believe you went to more effort for this kill than I did. I have never seen anyone leap onto the back of a deer before!"

The Orc-maiden - for something suddenly told Glorfindel that she was very young - looked at him in deep suspicion. Then, clearly overwhelmed with hunger, she crouched down and started simply tearing mouthfuls of raw meat from the deer's body with her sharp teeth, still watching him the whole time.

Dismayed by the violence of her meal, Glorfindel almost looked away.

_No,_ he thought. _I must not show her ill-manners. Either I choose to treat her as an enemy and slay her quickly and with honor, or I must behave towards her with the same civility that I would show to anyone else I might have met._

After a moment, the young Orc stopped eating and looked up. Glorfindel ignored the traces of blood around her mouth.

"Why aren't you trying to kill me?" she demanded. "You elves and your bows and swords and things are always out hunting Orcs. So why not me?"

"I could say the same about Orcs!" Glorfindel replied in surprise, thinking with a flash of grief and old, deep anger of the many friends he had lost to that savage race. _But of course, we are the race that __they__ know as their ancient enemies._

As the Orc-woman bristled, Glorfindel realized that his words had done no good. "I see no reason to attack you," he said, answering the question she had asked a moment earlier. "You have not tried to harm me."

She looked surprised, as though she had not realized that the question of why a battle had not broken out applied to them both. "Maybe I was just too hungry to kill you!" she said. It sounded almost as if she felt the need to make an excuse for not attacking someone who should be her enemy.

Looking at her rough-skinned gray face, Glorfindel was suddenly and forcefully struck with the realization that she was descended from the same race as he. The history of the Orcs was something he had always known, of course; but the story of how the Great Enemy had captured and tortured the kinsfolk of his earliest ancestors, changing their bodies and souls into those of the Orcs in nameless pits of agony far below the earth, was something that Glorfindel had usually thought of only as a tragic tale of ancient history. Now he found himself staring the living truth of that story in the face.

Suddenly amazed, Glorfindel looked into the Orc's enormous gray eyes and saw them as the eyes of an Elf. Aside from the shape and color of the face they were set in, they were no different. Now that he was looking at them this way, he felt an acute sense of wonder at the spirit he saw shining in them.

"The light of Valinor is in your eyes," he told her, not knowing he was going to say it until he already had. Despite his surprise at his own words, he knew that it was perfectly, amazingly true.

The young Orc-maiden stared at him in total blank puzzlement. "What is Valinor?"

Glorfindel's heart almost broke as she said it. _She knows nothing of our people!_ Then he was distracted from that sudden grief by realizing that he had indeed been guilty of a most basic and terrible oversight in manners.

"Forgive me," he said, bowing slightly but with sincere respect. "I am Glorfindel, an Elf of Imladris. What is your name?"

* * *

Author's Note: This fanfic is rated only K+ or PG if you go by movie ratings. There is no place in it for details of the Orcs' tragic and terrifying history. If you want to read my version of how some of the early Elves were transformed against their wills into the beginnings of the Orc race, I will be telling it (along with many other things) in my Silmarillion fanfic "The Last Note." That fanfic is rated T, or PG-13, and parts of it are quite a bit more violent than this story, though I am writing it with complete respect and a lack of anything I would consider gratuitous.

To date I have only written and posted "The Last Note" through Chapter 4, but several more chapters should be forthcoming in the very immediate future. Chapters 7 and 8 of "The Last Note" will be the ones that tell the central part of the story of the Orcs' origins, although there will also be a lot about it in other chapters.


	5. Chapter 5: Names

Chapter 5: Names

Author's Note: Yeah, it looks like I got another racist review. Lilly McShepin, all I can bring myself to say to you is this: I take exception to your comment that a golden ring is inherently good BECAUSE it is made out of gold. I find that to be shallow and pointless.

A warm thank you to everyone who has shown appreciation for this fanfic! It means a lot to me, and I want to promise all of you again: no matter what anyone ever says, I will finish and post this entire story exactly the way I intend it. Glorfindel and Kills-without-rest - and the Ents and Entwives - will have their story told. :)

For anyone interested in the concept of redemption from evil in a fantasy setting, I would particularly recommend (out of the many beautiful examples that exist) that you read the excellent fantasy novel "Quest for the Fallen Star" by Piers Anthony, James Richey, and Alan Riggs. You may find the character of Brother Gorin to be as fascinating and compelling as I do.

My friend Araloth the Random pointed out in her review - quite correctly - that "there is in fact no established canon on the origin of Orcs." She's right, of course, and her comment made me realize that I ought to explain where I'm coming from on this. YES, the Silmarillion stated only that "it was said" that the Orcs were descended from Elves who had been captured by Morgoth - but it also stated in the same way that a lot of other things were "said" to be true: Tulkas and Nessa's wedding at the feast on Almaren island; Aredhel's feelings about living with Eöl; even everyone's favorite piece of Silmarillion fanfic-inspiration, the fate of Maglor. So while the Orcs' origin as Elves is not truly canon, it's canon enough for me.

I've updated my Silmarillion fic "The Last Note" through Chapter 8 now. As I promised in my author's note in Chapter 4 of "Sundered Kindreds," Chapters 7 and 8 of "The Last Note" tell the main part of my version of the Orcs' origins from long ago. If you're interested in my ideas about that, please go read it!

* * *

Kills-without-rest stared at the Elf. She had never imagined meeting one who would speak to her this way instead of attacking her, and he was obviously just as surprised by her own lack of violence towards him. She could not explain even to herself why she had not killed him yet.

Maybe it was because she did not see any of the terrible cruelty in his eyes that she had always been taught to expect from the Elves. Somehow, she found herself wanting to keep talking to him.

"My name is Kills-without-rest," she said, giving the form of the name in Black Speech the way she used it among her fellow Orcs.

Glorfindel winced as if his ears hurt, but he nodded in understanding, meeting her eyes. "A name of strength," he said, his voice as fair as the starlight she sometimes found the bravery to stare at on a moonless night. "Though I like not the tongue in which it is spoken."

"What's wrong with it?" she snapped furiously. "Do you think your Westron man-talk is better?"

She snarled in her throat, wondering if she ought to draw her sword and finish the so-lovely elf then and there. But Glorfindel dropped his eyes.

"Forgive me," he said, abashed. "That language means only evil to me, and I have long feared and hated it. But I forget that, to you, it is the sound of your people's voices."

_That's better,_ Kills-without-rest thought. She decided to let Glorfindel live for now.

She looked down at the deer they had killed. It was still mostly untouched, though she had eaten nearly all the meat from one haunch. It was less than she might have wanted, but in this state of wary alertness she found that her hunger had vanished. It would be impossible for her to eat more right now.

"I don't want any more," she said, looking back up into Glorfindel's clear gray eyes. _After all, he killed it too..._ she thought. And he had offered the animal to her instead of fighting her for it. Only Tough-hide had ever done such a thing before, in all the time since she grew old enough that her parents stopped giving her food and made her hunt her own. "You can have it. Roast it if you like, I don't care."

Glorfindel inclined his head to her. "Thank you," he said simply. "I shall take it home to my people in Rivendell."

Kills-without-rest almost turned to leave, but then she stopped. There was still something that he hadn't explained. "What did you mean about 'Valinor'?" she asked, as the Elf knelt down and took out a knife to begin cutting away the nearly-eaten haunch of the deer.

Glorfindel looked up at her, seeming startled again. For some reason, his eyes looked terribly sad for an instant. Not pausing in his work, he began to speak.

"Valinor is the blessed land where the mighty Valar live, far beyond the Western Sea," he explained. "Long ago, before the Sun and Moon were made, many of the Elves traveled there to live for a time. They learned much from the Valar, and their hearts came to know great light and joy."

His eyes turned angry, but not at Kills-without-rest or anything else nearby. Reaching up with one hand, Glorfindel pushed back his gray hood. The hair it had concealed was very long and loose, a bright golden color, and much softer and finer than any Orc possessed. It reminded Kills-without-rest of the mass of fine gold chains she had once found in a small, forgotten treasure hoard.

"There are many tales I could tell you of Valinor," Glorfindel said. "Some are joyful, some terrible, but all are filled with wonder." He shook his head sadly. "But some of the Elves in those ancient days never went to Valinor at all. Some chose not to go; others had no choice. They were captured by the Dark Power, the Great Enemy whose malice almost destroyed that ancient world."

Kills-without-rest listened, spellbound. She could not remember exactly how long it had been since anyone had truly told her a story.

"He tormented them cruelly," Glorfindel said, his eyes filled with pain now. _Like the Lord of Mordor!_ Kills-without-rest thought. She had heard many tales of the things that had happened to unlucky Orcs before their Master's defeat. Of course, her own people had also tortured prisoners for as long as any history remembered. But now this Elf's words were conjuring visions for her of _Elves_, somehow not enemies but just people, facing the same feelings of helpless terror at the hands of a vast, dark power that the Orcs had always known. She stared wide-eyed at Glorfindel as he continued speaking.

"I don't know exactly what he did to them," he said, "but he must have hurt them more terribly than I can imagine. He changed them, forced them to become what he wanted them to be instead of what they were made to be. And those Elves," he finished to her shock, "were _your_ ancestors. Morgoth, the Black Foe, forced them against their wills to become the Orcs."

"We can't have been Elves!" Kills-without-rest protested indignantly, her eyes flashing even as her nose wrinkled in disgust. "Elves smell bad!"

Glorfindel raised one eyebrow at her in an expression of utter astonishment. Kills-without-rest stared sharply at him for a moment, then let it pass. After all, she supposed, she might not smell much sweeter to him.

* * *

_Forgive me, Master Elrond,_ Glorfindel thought briefly, closing his eyes with no thought of danger from Kills-without-rest. _Elladan, Elrohir... most of all you, Lady Celebrían. I have not forgotten the things you have suffered. But I must have faith that you would want me to do as my heart tells me in this._

He looked at the Orc again. "Would you care to return with me as my guest, to visit my home in Imladris?"

She looked measuringly at him. _Are you sure this isn't a trap?_ he half-expected her to say; it was certainly the first thing he himself would have thought if she had extended a similar invitation, and he could tell from the wary look in her eyes that the possibility of a trap had indeed occured to her.

Then she nodded decisively. "All right," she said, sounding bold and even eager. "I want to hear more stories. Even if you won't tell the truth about my people!"

Glorfindel was unable to feel concerned by her accusation of falsehood. He well remembered his own childhood disbelief when he was first told that Elves and Orcs were descended from the same ancestors.

Standing up, he lifted the deer and slung it over his shoulders. It was not large enough to be a troublesome burden for the distance from here to where Asfaloth waited outside the forest - _no doubt still grazing!_ he thought with a brief surge of the ever-present affection that existed between him and his glorious horse-friend.

"Follow me then, please, my lady," he said, smiling at Kills-without-rest over the deer's two front legs that he held with his right hand. As he began to pick his way through the forest, finding paths that would allow him to fit the deer's wide body between the trees, the young Orc-maiden fell silently into step beside him.

_The light of Valinor is in your eyes..._ How could he explain to her that the fierce, burning spirit he saw there, a spirit neither broken nor dimmed by everything that her race had been put through, the light that Eru the Creator had put into her soul at her birth, was the same light that Eru had given to Elbereth and Yavanna to use in the creation of the stars and the Two Trees of Valinor?

_And yet,_ Glorfindel thought, _the Two Trees are no more, but the light in this young Orc's spirit is still here._

* * *

"I will not ride that animal!" Kills-without-rest said, almost laughing in disbelief at Glorfindel's offer. The slim, swift-looking white horse, bells jingling softly on its harness, stood without even seeming to feel the weight of the deer that was now strapped across its back just behind the saddle. "You ride it! I can run alongside."

"No doubt you can," Glorfindel said. He leaped up into the saddle, and they were off across the plain. The Silver Eye was still out in the sky, a gleaming crescent gazing craftily through its narrowed lids, but Kills-without-rest was feeling bold. She was completely uninclined to be afraid of it just then.

Kills-without-rest ran easily beside the smoothly jogging horse; Asfaloth, Glorfindel had said his animal's name was. She would not have been able to keep up with a racing gallop, but the Elf did not push his horse's pace, and she had no trouble.

A while later, Glorfindel looked down at her. "I would like to give you a name in my own speech," he said. "I know what your own name means, the strength in war that it signifies, but to me it also signals another kind of strength." He paused for just a hoofbeat, as Kills-without-rest listened in too much surprise to be able to think up a response yet. "In my own language, I believe your name would be Fëathalië, which is 'Enduring'."

She looked up at him for a moment as she ran, thinking about what to say. _He said my people used to be Elves. I thought he was lying, but now I'm starting to think he believes it!_ Still, this struck her as just a little bit ridiculous.

"Why should I accept such a name?" she demanded sharply. "You wouldn't allow me to give _you_ a name in the Black Speech!"

Glorfindel's eyes suddenly went rounder than she had ever seen anyone's before. He looked almost frightened for a second. Then his face cleared.

"I would," he said. "What name would you give me?"

"What does your own name mean?" Kills-without-rest asked, startled but very pleased by his unexpected agreement.

He smiled. "It means 'golden hair'," he answered.

Kills-without-rest considered, still keeping pace with Asfaloth's gentle trot. Orc names, like her own, could not just be simple descriptions. What would be a suitably fierce and imposing name, one that would strike fear into the hearts of enemy forces?

Looking at the golden hair that Glorfindel was named for, she suddenly imagined him riding to war with that hair blazing atop his head as if the Yellow Eye of day was caught in its strands. The terrible brightness of the Elves and their weapons was something her parents and Tough-hide had described again and again in their stories of war against these frightening enemies; she could imagine no better meaning than that for his new name.

"Among my people, you would be called Battle-bright," she told him.

Again, Glorfindel reacted in apparent pain to the sound of the Black Speech in which she said the name. But at the same time, his eyes held a look of sudden appreciation that made him look almost as young as she was.

"Battle-bright," he repeated, seeming to have more trouble actually forcing himself to say the name than he had with forming the unfamiliar sounds. He gave her a candid half-smile. "Did I say that right?" he asked. "I have understood much of your language for many years, but I have never attempted to actually say anything in it."

"Well enough," Kills-without-rest answered.

* * *

Author's Note: The name 'Fëathalië' is made up from two parts that are listed separately in the Silmarillion's index of the meanings of parts of names: 'fëa' means 'spirit', and 'thalion' means 'strong, dauntless' - or where 'Thalion' is listed as a complete name in the other part of the index, the meaning given is 'Steadfast, Strong.'

I changed it around a little to make it sound more to me like something that could be a female name. Three cheers for fangirl Elvish! =D

My sister Razzle is the one who thought of the name 'Battle-bright,' and also the idea of Kills-without-rest giving Glorfindel a Black Speech name in the first place. It's a great addition to this fic - I love it! Thanks, Razzle!


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